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Giambattista Vico was a Renaissance Man after the Renaissance, but he was largely forgotten for centuries. As a professor of rhetoric, he often had the occasion to speak and write about the education of the young. We take a look at some of his orations on the topic, which are a mine of profound insight. Vico has some complaints that will sound very familiar, like, "Parents all just want their kids to become lawyers or doctors and get rich."

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

New Humanists episode on A.G. Sertillanges: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/me-an-intellectual-episode-xxvi/id1570296135?i=1000568461907

New Humanists episode on Donald Phillip Verene: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-humane-education-episode-iv/id1570296135?i=1000529006912

Donald Phillip Verene's History of Philosophy: https://amzn.to/3HK7zYa

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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After reading Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a member of the French National Assembly wrote to Burke, asking for more of his analysis on the revolution then underway. In reply, Burke wrote a long letter which included a sustained attack on the preeminent philosopher of the revolution: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This analysis identifies that at the heart of the uprising in France lies an attempt to totally transform education - and in particular, its role in forming norms around sexual behavior.

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Richard Price's A Discourse on the Love of Our Country: https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/price-a-discourse-on-the-love-of-our-country

Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199539024

Edmund Burke's Letter to a Member of the National Assembly: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15700/15700-h/15700-h.htm#MEMBER_OF_THE_NATIONAL_ASSEMBLY

C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944

Rémi Brague's God as a Gentleman: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/02/god-as-a-gentleman

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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What if you gathered a bunch of friends, went out to the desert of Arizona, and built the greatest city that the world had ever seen? That is what Romulus does, and what Livy chronicles (except it's not in Arizona). We explore the challenges a founder faces in a startup city, how to fill it with people, and how to unify the inhabitants into one, cohesive people.

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

William Golding's Lord of the Flies: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780399501487

Fustel de Coulanges's La Cité Antique (French): https://amzn.to/3yzATuZ

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

Saint Augustine's City of God: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140448948

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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This is the second episode of our series about Livy's "Ab Urbe Condita," called "No Republic Was Ever Greater." The story of the founding of Rome continues with the story of twin brothers Romulus and Remus, as they escape certain death in a coup against their grandfather, grow up as shepherd bandits, and stage a counter-coup to return their grandfather to power. 

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

Fustel de Coulanges's La Cité Antique (French): https://amzn.to/3yzATuZ

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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This is the first episode of a new series on New Humanists, called "No Republic Was Ever Greater." We are walking through the masterpiece, "Ab Urbe Condita," by Ancient Roman historian Titus Livy and the great commentary on Livy, Renaissance philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli's Discourses. In this episode, we consider the lessons that founders and leaders can learn from Livy's account of the Trojan hero Aeneas.

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

Paul Cantor's Lecture 1 of 3 on Romeo and Juliet: https://youtu.be/XnaSBpwQDhY?t=3124

Dan Carlin's Death Throes of the Republic: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-death-throes-of-the-republic-series/

Herodotus' The Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146

Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780684827902

Barack Obama's Remarks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-chicago-council-global-affairs

Fustel de Coulanges's La Cité Antique (French): https://amzn.to/3yzATuZ

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

Euripides' Helen: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199537969

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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The late antique and medieval Church saw Virgil as a pagan herald of Christ, due to the seemign messianic prophecies in Eclogue IV. In a 1953 essay titled "Vergil and the Christian World," T.S. Eliot argues that the Christian sympathies in Virgil's poetry go even deeper than that single poem, and in fact suffuse the entire Virgilian corpus.

T.S. Eliot's Vergil and the Christian World: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27538181

Vergil's Eclogue 4 (Latin): https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/ec4.shtml

Vergil's Eclogue 4 (English): http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/eclogue.4.iv.html

Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid (Latin-English): https://amzn.to/3VlnUqr

Fustel de Coulanges's La Cité Antique (French): https://amzn.to/3yzATuZ

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

Alan Jacobs's The Year of Our Lord 1943: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651

T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land: https://poets.org/poem/waste-land

Plutarch's On the Obsolescence of Oracles: https://amzn.to/3RVk4kW

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Ælfric's Colloquy is a dialogue between a teacher and his students, written both in Old English and Latin, designed to teach Latin to Anglo-Saxon schoolboys. It is also the earliest record of a (relatively) realistic English-language conversation. In celebration of the Ancient Language Institute's new Old English program, Dr. Colin Gorrie joins Jonathan and Ryan to walk through the Colloquy and to talk about language learning, education, and literacy in medieval England.

Ælfric's Colloquy (Old English): https://www.kul.pl/files/165/history%20of%20english/texts2009/aelfriccolloquy-translation.pdf

Colloquium Ælfrici (Latine): https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/12358426/colloquium-aelfrici-1-nos-pueri-rogamus-te-magister-ut-doceas-nos-

Ælfric's Colloquy (modern English translation): https://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/016.pdf

David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day": https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a1419/talk-pretty-0399/

Eleanor Dickey's Learn Latin from the Romans: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781316506196

C. P. Wormald's "The Uses of Literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and Its Neighbours": https://www.jstor.org/stable/3679189

Watch an Old English Beginner Lesson with Dr. Gorrie: https://youtu.be/YwECgGWCwis

Old English at the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/old-english/

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Are classical educators dooming their students to poverty? Even back in the early 1800s, that accusation was gaining steam. Edward Copleston was a titanic figure at Oxford's Oriel College in the early 19th century, and inspired John Henry Newman, among others. Facing attacks by utilitarian critics of Oxford, Copleston launched a defense of classical education in his “Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review Against Oxford.”

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Augustine’s Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin: https://amzn.to/3U7vrsn

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Is knowledge its own end? Or is it a means to something else? In Discourse Five of his The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman juxtaposes Cato and Cicero as opponents on this question, but Newman’s juxtaposition is not without its own difficulties. Jonathan’s old teacher, Dr. Robert Jackson of the Great Hearts Institute, joins the podcast to talk Newman, knowledge, and education.

John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780268011505

Great Hearts Academies: https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/

Great Hearts Institute: https://greathearts.institute/

National Symposium for Classical Education: https://classicaleducationsymposium.org/

Cicero’s Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/3QxfSbe

Aristotle’s Metaphysics: https://amzn.to/3Cc9pyf

New Humanists Episode XI: Benedict in Regensburg: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/benedict-in-regensburg-faith-reason-and-the/id1570296135?i=1000542008795

G.E.M. Anscombe’s Modern Moral Philosophy: https://sites.pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/mmp.pdf

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Milton and Shakespeare? Or Homer and Virgil? Why should our students study Greeks and Romans when we have English-language poets, philosophers, and historians worthy to be placed on the same level as the ancients? Maybe because the “ancients” aren’t really so ancient after all… 

So argues Thomas Arnold in his defense of the classical curriculum he instituted at Rugby School. Jonathan and Ryan use Arnold’s “Use of the Classics” essay, his defense of classical education, to distinguish between two things that are nowadays often conflated: a “classical” curriculum and a “Great Books” curriculum.

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199555017

Helen Andrews’s Boomers: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780593086759

Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays: https://amzn.to/3vEZNYQ

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Support the show